Someone gasped as Yrene reached her glowing, blinding hands toward the princess’s chest, as if guided by some invisible tug.
The demon began to panic, sensing her approach.
Distantly, she heard Sartaq swear. Heard the crack of wood as Duva drove her foot into the arm of the couch.
There was only the thrashing Valg, scrabbling at power. Only her incandescent hands, reaching for the princess.
Yrene laid her glowing hands on Duva’s chest.
Light flared, bright as a sun. People cried out.
But as quickly as it had appeared, the light vanished, sucked into Yrene—into where her hands met Duva’s chest. Sucked into the princess herself.
Along with Yrene.
It was a dark storm within.
Cold, and raging, and ancient.
Yrene felt it squatting there. Squatting everywhere. A tapeworm indeed.
“You will all die—” the Valg demon began to hiss.
Yrene unleashed her power.
A torrent of white light flooded every vein and bone and nerve.
Not a river, but a band of light made up of the countless kernels of her power—so many they were legion, all hunting out each dark, festering corner, each screaming crevice of malice.
Far away, beyond, a blacksmith arrived. A hammer struck metal.
Hasar snarled—the sound echoed by Chaol, right at Yrene’s ear.
Half aware, she saw the black, glittering stone held within the metal as they carefully passed it around on a vizier’s kerchief.
The Valg demon roared as her magic smothered it, drowned it. Yrene panted against the onslaught as it pushed back. Shoved at her.
Chaol’s hand again began to rub down her back in soothing lines.
More of the world faded away.
I am not afraid of you, Yrene said into the dark. And you have nowhere to run.
Duva thrashed, trying to unseat Yrene’s grip. Yrene pressed down harder on her chest.
Time slowed and bent. She was dimly aware of the ache in her knees, the cramp in her back. Dimly aware of Sartaq and Kashin refusing to offer their position to someone else.
Still Yrene sent her magic flowing into Duva. Filling her with that devouring light.
The demon screamed the entire time.
But bit by bit, she blasted it back, blasted it deeper.
Until she saw it, curled within the core of her.
Its true form … It was as horrific as she’d imagined.
Smoke swirled and coiled about it, revealing glimpses of gangly limbs and talons, mostly hairless gray, slick skin, and unnaturally large dark eyes that raged as she looked upon it.
Truly looked upon it.
It hissed, revealing pointed, fish-sharp teeth. Your world shall fall. As the others have done. As all others will.
The demon dug claws deep into the darkness. Duva screamed.
“Pathetic,” Yrene told it.
Perhaps she spoke the word aloud, for silence fell.
Distantly, that bond flowing away … it thinned. The hand on her back drifted away.
“Utterly pathetic,” Yrene repeated, her magic rallying behind her in a mighty, cresting white wave. “For a prince to prey on a helpless woman.”
The demon scrambled back against the wave, clawing at the dark as if it would tunnel through Duva.
Yrene pushed forward. Let her wave fall.
And as her power slammed into that last remnant of the demon, it laughed. No prince am I, girl. But a princess. And my sisters shall soon find you.
Yrene’s light erupted, shredding and cleaving, devouring any last scrap of darkness—
Yrene snapped back into her body, collapsing against the floor. Chaol shouted her name.
But Hasar was there, hauling her upright as Yrene lunged for Duva, hands flaring—
But Duva coughed, choking, trying to twist onto her side.
“Turn her,” Yrene rasped to the princes, who obeyed. Just as Duva heaved, and vomited over the edge of the couch. It splattered Yrene’s knees, reeking to deepest hell. But she scanned the mess. Food—mostly food, and speckles of blood.
Duva retched again, a deep, choking noise.
Only black smoke broke from her lips. She retched again, and again.
Until a tendril dribbled onto the emerald floors.
And as the shadows slithered out of Duva’s lips … Yrene felt it. Even as her magic strained and buckled, she felt the last of that Valg demon vanish into nothing.
A bit of dew dissolved by the sun.
Her body became cold and aching. Empty. Her magic drained to the dregs.
She blinked up at the wall of people standing around the couch.
The khagan’s sons now flanked their father, hands on their swords, faces grim.
Lethal—with rage. Not at Yrene, not at Duva, but the man who had sent this to their house. Their family.
Duva’s face relaxed on an exhaled breath, color blooming on her cheeks.
Duva’s husband tried to surge for her again, but Yrene stopped him with an upheld hand.
Heavy—her hand was so heavy. But she held the young man’s panicked stare. Which had not been on his wife’s face, but the belly. Yrene nodded to him as if to say, I will look.
Then she laid her hands on that round, high womb.
Sent her magic probing, dancing along it—the life within.
Something new and joyous answered back.
Loudly.
Its kick roused Duva with an ooph, her eyelids fluttering open.
Duva blinked at them all. Blinked at Yrene, the hand she still laid on her belly. “Is it—” The words were a broken rasp.
Yrene smiled, panting softly, relief a crushing weight in her chest. “Healthy and human.”
Duva just stared at Yrene until tears filled and flowed from those dark eyes.
Her husband sank into a chair and covered his face, shoulders shaking.
There was a flurry of motion, and then the khagan was there.
And the most powerful man on the earth fell to his knees before that couch and reached for his daughter. Crushed her against him.
“Is it true, Duva?” Arghun demanded from the head of the couch, and Yrene resisted the urge to snap at him about giving the woman some space to sort through all she’d endured.
Sartaq had no reservations. He snarled at his elder brother, “Shut your mouth.”
But before Arghun could hiss a retort, Duva lifted her head from the khagan’s shoulder.
Tears leaked down her cheeks as she surveyed Sartaq and Arghun. Then Hasar. Then Kashin. And lastly the husband who lifted his head from his hands.
Shadows still lined that lovely face, but—human ones.
“It is true,” Duva whispered, her voice breaking as she looked back to her brothers and sister. “All of it.”
And as everything that confession implied sank in, the khagan gathered her to him again, rocking her gently while she wept.
Hasar lingered by the foot of the couch as her brothers pressed in to embrace their sister, something like longing on her face.
Hasar noticed Yrene’s stare and mouthed the words: Thank you.
Yrene only bowed her head and backed toward where Chaol was waiting. Not at her side, but sitting in his chair next to a nearby pillar. He must have asked a servant to bring it from his suite when the tether between them had grown thin as she battled within Duva.
Chaol wheeled over to her, scanning her features. But his own face held no grief, no frustration.
Only awe—awe and such adoration it snatched her breath away. Yrene settled in his lap, and he looped his arms around her as she kissed his cheek.
A door slammed open across the hall, and rushing feet and skirts filled the air. And sobbing. The Grand Empress was sobbing as she threw herself toward her daughter.
She made it within a foot before Kashin leaped in, grabbing his mother by the waist, her white gown swaying with the force of her halted sprint. She spoke in Halha, too fast for Yrene to understand, her skin ashen against the jet black of her long, straight hair. She did not seem to notice anyone but the daughter before her as Kashin murmured an explanation, his hand stroking down his mother’s thin back in soothing lines.
The Grand Empress just fell to her knees and folded Duva into her arms.
An old ache stirred in Yrene at the sight of that mother and daughter, at the sight of both of them, weeping with grief and joy.
Chaol squeezed her shoulder in quiet understanding as Yrene slid off his lap and they turned to leave.
“Anything,” the khagan said over his shoulder to Yrene, the man still kneeling by Duva and his wife as Hasar at last swept in to embrace her sister. Their mother just enfolded both princesses, kissing the sisters on their cheeks and brows and hair as they held together tightly. “Anything you desire,” the khagan said. “Ask it, and it is yours.”